June 2011
9 posts
5 tags
Review: Swim the Fly
Swim the Fly by Don Calame (Templar) is like a literary version of Judd Apatow films which, because we’re talking about a target audience of teenage boys rather than grown men, is actually a good thing. Matt, Coop and Sean set themselves a challenge every summer – it used to be things like collecting a thousand stray golf balls but this year it is to see a real live naked girl. Matt has the...
10 tags
Top 5: Books to wean your teen from vamp trash...
LBB is not really mad about teenage bloodsucker books: Team Edward we are not. We find the idea of teenage boys (17 going on 117) not fumbling with bra straps slightly disturbing. If you want to wean your teen from vamp trash, we suggest our top five (actually) good supernatural novels:
1. Moth Diaries - Rachel Klein. Published before its time in 2004, this has all the angst of Twilight but, with...
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Author Crush: Mal Peet
You know when a book has really got under your skin when you have to remind yourself that no, the characters do not exist in real life, and no, it would not be cool to ring the author and ask whether Clem goes back to Frankie, that in fact you are really only one step away from talking at characters in The Archers like your mum…. But we defy you to read Life: An Exploded Diagram (Walker)...
7 tags
Top 5: Depraved Young Adult Novels
Unlike Wall Street Journal columnist Meghan Cox Gurdon, we’re all for a bit of depravity in children’s books. But only when it comes with literary excellence. So here we celebrate the last fifteen years of depraved literature.
1. This is all: The Pillow Book of Cordelia by Aidan Chambers. It should be passed down the maternal line when girls ‘come of age’. It has underage...
5 tags
News: another cosy, middle aged Laureate?
Robert Muchamore put the cat among the tweeters today by asking if we really needed “another cosy, middle aged, white person representing kids lit?” on the announcement of Julia Donaldson as Children’s Laureate. We know what he means - but bet poor old (sorry, middle aged) Michael Rosen is spitting: he doesn’t do ‘cosy’.
Yes, of course it would be good to see...
8 tags
Tales from under the counter
A big part of working in an independent bookshop is offering recommendations. You get addicted to it, and each bookseller has their own favourites that they always try and push (I’m still trying to get someone to buy Francisco X. Stork’s The Last Summer of the Death Warriors - story about a boy wanting to wreak violent revenge and another dying of cancer anyone?)
As another parent...
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Review: My Dad is Beautiful
We do love an emasculated Dad here at LBB - and the deliberately provocative repetition of the feminised adjective in My Dad is Beautiful by Jessica Spanyol (Walker) combined with the pictures of an obese, hairy, dungareed male of indeterminate species ticks all our boxes. Boden Dad he ain’t. As with all the best picture books there is a subtle sub-text, probably visible only to mothers. Dad...
4 tags
“We read some of the swearing together and had a good discussion about...”
– American Amazon review of The Boy Who Lost His Face - Louis Sachar. Another comedic gem.
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Review: The Case of the Deadly Desperados
LBB has to shamefacedly admit to ignoring Caroline Lawrence, author of the hugely successful Roman Mysteries books, purely on the basis that the parents who buy them for their children are always so smug. It’s the Educational Glint in their eyes that’s so annoying. But putting prejudice and all thoughts of John Wayne aside, we decided to give her new Wild West series a go and, dang,...
